Defeat.

Ok, so I have a friend and we play video games all the time the thing is my friend can never ever just admit defeat and bow out gracefully. Any time I win he throws a fit and blames his defeat on something or changes the rules we had agreed upon at the beginning of the game. It's not just him I have noticed that people can't just accept that they have failed or are wrong, my mother being another prime example. You can't tell her she is wrong if you do she will just proceed to talk in circles until you forget what the debate was about. No one likes to lose but sometimes you have to just call a pig a pig. I'm curious to see how other's feel on such things.

I'm much the opposite. I like competitive video games; DotA and CS:GO at the present, and I beat myself up quite a bit if I lose. Even if my team wins, I'll berate myself for sub-par performance. My friends always tell me to lighten up when we play. I'd say your friend is quite similar to me, really, but while I want myself to be an amazing player, he seems to already think he is one.

I'm much the opposite. I like competitive video games; DotA and CS:GO at the present, and I beat myself up quite a bit if I lose. Even if my team wins, I'll berate myself for sub-par performance. My friends always tell me to lighten up when we play. I'd say your friend is quite similar to me, really, but while I want myself to be an amazing player, he seems to already think he is one.

You should shed this womanly response to competition (however simulated) and embrace your masculinity. Only women say `tee-hee, I`m not that good LOL` while secretly reveling in praise and attention. Men range from the stoic to the braggart; do not be afraid of pride in your accomplishments. The existence of something like the Duning-Kreuger effect shouldnt blunt our humanity, the only lesson one should take from it is caution. Listen to your friends.

You should shed this womanly response to competition (however simulated) and embrace your masculinity. Only women say `tee-hee, I`m not that good LOL` while secretly reveling in praise and attention

Attention whore doesn't really seem to fit.

If anything, i see his attitude as being more along the lines of fragile high self-esteem - something commonly found in overachievers. The problem these type of people have is that they tie their sense of self-worth and identity to their success - something that is ultimately transient. So when they inevitably fail, or someone questions their status, their entire sense of self begins to implode.

Seems to be common in "Judging" personality types too. Judgement is fine, but it's important to accept something for what it is after passing judgement on it. This prevents the exercise from turning into a form of ego masturbation, that eventually goes full circle, and comes back to bite you in the ass.

I'm much the opposite. I like competitive video games; DotA and CS:GO at the present, and I beat myself up quite a bit if I lose. Even if my team wins, I'll berate myself for sub-par performance. My friends always tell me to lighten up when we play. I'd say your friend is quite similar to me, really, but while I want myself to be an amazing player, he seems to already think he is one.

You should shed this womanly response to competition (however simulated) and embrace your masculinity. Only women say `tee-hee, I`m not that good LOL` while secretly reveling in praise and attention. Men range from the stoic to the braggart; do not be afraid of pride in your accomplishments. The existence of something like the Duning-Kreuger effect shouldnt blunt our humanity, the only lesson one should take from it is caution. Listen to your friends.

Fucking videogames, soma.

I didn't see it like that at all. Women try to downplay there ability on the grounds of being overly competitive and domineering might not seem very feminine, whereas what Corpse was saying is he is just rather hard on himself. I can agree with what he was saying as far as it's easy to be downplay you're abilities but femaleness is sometimes synonymous with weakness and a need to let the males seem dominant and what not.(this is just what I have noticed not to talk down on women) Although society is moving to the point where girls are encouraged to be competitive.

"Fragile high self-esteem" is the same thing. Overachievers are generally effeminate nerds. We are also ultimately not rational creatures and can enjoy / seek out things we may consciously reject, especially internally. Certainly not an attention whore though.

I say this only because of experience with this kind of response and behaviour. Anecdotally, such people do indeed rate their abilities very highly, they just don't brag about them (often introverted as well). They think they are better than most people, but this is shadowed by a sense of inferiority (physical or otherwise). They delight in praise even if they are torn between embarrassment and delight. This is why I call this behaviour womanly. Such people are always restricted to second tier and frustrated because they are not truly comfortable in themselves. Perhaps I am totally off, but Corpse is the only judge.

Downplaying one's ability (among other things) can be a social cue instead of simple information exchange, an appearance more than a conviction. We are such social creatures that one can easily convince themselves of conviction where only appearance exists. Status signaling goes hand-in-hand with human existence. It is valuable to recognize it, everyone is afflicted.

"Fragile high self-esteem" is the same thing. Overachievers are generally effeminate nerds. We are also ultimately not rational creatures and can enjoy / seek out things we may consciously reject, especially internally. Certainly not an attention whore though.

I say this only because of experience with this kind of response and behaviour. Anecdotally, such people do indeed rate their abilities very highly, they just don't brag about them (often introverted as well). They think they are better than most people, but this is shadowed by a sense of inferiority (physical or otherwise). They delight in praise even if they are torn between embarrassment and delight. This is why I call this behaviour womanly. Such people are always restricted to second tier and frustrated because they are not truly comfortable in themselves. Perhaps I am totally off, but Corpse is the only judge.

Downplaying one's ability (among other things) can be a social cue instead of simple information exchange, an appearance more than a conviction. We are such social creatures that one can easily convince themselves of conviction where only appearance exists. Status signaling goes hand-in-hand with human existence. It is valuable to recognize it, everyone is afflicted.

Everyone thinks they are better than someone else. The rich look down on the regular joes, the regular schmuck looks down on the criminals, the criminals look down on the other criminal who is less of a selfish shit head, ad infinitum. That being said doesn't high self esteem mean that you wouldn't need to have other's approval to feel complete?

That being said doesn't high self esteem mean that you wouldn't need to have other's approval to feel complete?

Depends.

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A person can have a high self-esteem and hold it confidently where they do not need reassurance from others to maintain their positive self view, whereas others with defensive, high self-esteem may still report positive self-evaluations on the Rosenberg Scale, as all high self-esteem individuals do; however, their positive self-views are fragile and vulnerable to criticism. Defensive high self-esteem individuals internalize subconscious self-doubts and insecurities causing them to react very negatively to any criticism they may receive. There is a need for constant positive feedback from others for these individuals to maintain their feelings of self-worth. The necessity of repeated praise can be associated with boastful, arrogant behavior or sometimes even aggressive and hostile feelings toward anyone who questions the individual's self-worth, an example of threatened egotism.

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Implicit self-esteem refers to a person's disposition to evaluate themselves positively or negatively in a spontaneous, automatic, or unconscious manner. It contrasts with explicit self-esteem, which entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation. Both explicit self-esteem and implicit self-esteem are subtypes of self-esteem proper.

I would be wary of basing anything on modern psychology (90s and prior). At its root is the assumption of the fundamentally rational man, which doesn't exist. It is more an extension of Enlightenment philosophical principles than science. What is the basis of the above quoted systemization of self-esteem?

It is more an extension of Enlightenment philosophical principles than science

Actually, a lot of the contemporary shit draws from various eastern religions/philosophy too - its a fairly eclectic field. I have more of an issue with the degenerate pop-psychology its responsible for creating, and the self improvement industry surrounding it that markets mostly snake oil. The pharmaceutical aspect is pretty shady too, but whatever.

Rational or not, generic behavioral patterns and responses do exist - probably one of the reasons cult leaders can be so successful at manipulating people. Confidence/self-esteem related issues are actually some of the few dysfunctions that psychologists can fix with a decent success rate.

A number of indirect assessment techniques have beendeveloped to measure implicit SE by recording responses that arenonobviously related to self-evaluations or that respondents cannoteasily control (see Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000). Thesemeasures may allow researchers to assess self-evaluations at levelsof awareness that cannot be accessed by self-report measures.Indeed, measures of implicit SE have been found to correlate onlyweakly, at best, with self-report measures of explicit SE, suggesting that they measure distinct types of self-evaluation (e.g., Bossonet al., 2000; Farnham, Greenwald, & Banaji, 1999). Becauseknowing an individual’s level of explicit SE tells us virtuallynothing about his or her level of implicit SE, many individuals whoreport positive self-views may also possess relatively negativeimplicit self-views.

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... people may sometimes directly experience their levels ofimplicit SE. When implicit and explicit SE are congruent, suchexperiences are not likely to be consequential. When explicit andimplicit SE are inconsistent, however, such awareness might beexperienced as an aversive inconsistency within the self, especiallywhen implicit SE is more negative than explicit SE. In this case,people may experience their low implicit SE as inexplicably negative self-feelings or nagging doubts about their competence andworth. Such aversive experiences, we suggest, are likely to motivate them to deny their negative implicit self-views and to activelystrive to defend their explicitly positive self-views. Thus, in thepresent studies, we explored whether the correspondence betweenexplicit and implicit SE predicts various indicators of defensiveness, specifically narcissism, in-group bias, and cognitive dissonance reduction. We predicted that individuals with high explicitbut low implicit SE would behave more defensively than individuals with high explicit and high implicit SE.

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In this study and in all studies reported herein, we measuredimplicit SE with the Implicit Associations Test (IAT; Greenwald,McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Of the extant measures of implicitSE, the IAT has shown the highest reliability (Bosson et al., 2000)and greater evidence of its construct validity. For example, the SEIAT predicts responses to success and failure (Greenwald & Farnham, 2001), the experience of positive emotions (Bosson et al.,2000), and persistence in the face of failure (Jordan et al., 2002).We thus measured participants’ levels of explicit and implicitSE and examined whether the correspondence between them isrelated to narcissism. We expected individuals with high explicitbut low implicit SE to show the highest levels of narcissismoverall.

Thanks, thats good stuff. IATs are very strong imo, the polar opposite of self-reporting. I agree that set patterns in behaviour and response exist, they are probably dominant, hence my comment on status-jockeying.